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[17] [84] The core is relatively small, with a mass of only 0.55 Earth masses and a radius less than 20% of the planet; the mantle comprises its bulk, with around 13.4 Earth masses, and the upper atmosphere is relatively insubstantial, weighing about 0.5 Earth masses and extending for the last 20% of Uranus's radius.
The major moons of Uranus are airless bodies. For instance, Titania was shown to possess no atmosphere at a pressure larger than 10–20 nanobar. [42] The path of the Sun in the local sky over the course of a local day during Uranus's and its major moons' summer solstice is quite different from that seen on most other Solar System worlds.
Image credits: Zahir Khan #11. Some 3,000 years ago, in modern-day Iran, ancient engineers created the Qanat—an ingenious underground system to carry water over long distances.
Alone but certainly unique, Uranus rotates at a nearly 90-degree angle and is surrounded by 13 icy rings. Images of which were captured in rich detail last year by the James Webb Space Telescope .
Puck—the largest inner moon of Uranus—was discovered from the images taken by Voyager 2 on 30 December 1985. It was given the temporary designation S/1985 U 1. [11]The moon was later named after the character Puck who appears in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, a little sprite who travels around the globe at night with the fairies.
The ice giants Uranus and Neptune live up to their name. Although humans have only ever sent one spacecraft (Voyager 2) toward these far-flung worlds, scientists have a pretty good idea that these ...
A solar wind event squashed the protective bubble around Uranus just before Voyager 2 flew by the planet in 1986, shifting how astronomers understood the mysterious world.
For this reason, scientists often classify Uranus and Neptune as "ice giants" to distinguish them from the gas giants. Uranus's atmosphere is similar to Jupiter's and Saturn's in its primary composition of hydrogen and helium, but it contains more "ices" such as water, ammonia, and methane, along with traces of other hydrocarbons.